The Opportunity For API-Driven Algorithmic Transparency At The Mobile Data Plan Level

02 Aug 2016

API Evangelist is focused on helping push for sensible API-driven transparency wherever I can get it. When done in sensible ways an API can crack open the often black box that is the algorithm, giving us access and more control over our online experience.

One of the most significant algorithmic bottlenecks that govern our daily lives is our mobile data plans. All of our mobile phones are governed at the data plan level--this is where the telecom companies make their money, throttling the bits and bytes we depend on each day.

The mobile data plan is a great place to discuss the algorithmic and data transparency that APIs can assist with, and one example of this in action is with the Google Mobile Data Plan API. Google wants more access at this level to improve the quality of experience for end-users when using mobile applications like Youtube, which can be severely impacted by data plan limits, while also significantly impacting your data plan consumption if not optimized.

There is so much opportunity for discussion between mobile network operator, API providers, developers, consumers at the data plan level. I know mobile network operators would rather keep this a black box, so they can maximize their revenue, but when you crack the network layer open with a publicly available API, there will be a number of new revenue opportunities.

Data plans affect all of us, every single day. We need more transparency into the algorithms that meter, limit, and charge us at the mobile data plan layer. We need the platforms we depend on each day to have more tools to optimize how applications consume (or do not consume) this extremely (seemingly) finite, and valuable resource (thanks, telcos!).

I've added an algorithms area to my research to keep an eye on this topic, curate stories I find, and share my own thoughts when it comes to algorithmic transparency using APIs.